Should we be worried about a fascism comeback? The United States may still have a long way to go before it could be called a fascist state, but the accusations levelled at its presidency have a clear historical basis.
What is fascism?
Fascism is an authoritarian political ideology developed by Benito Mussolini in Italy after World War 1, then imitated and brutally augmented in Germany by Adolf Hitler. Features distinguishing fascism from analogous regimes are reinforcement of social hierarchies, insistence on a constant process of nationalistic rebirth and quasi-religious
faith in the leader to reveal the way.
The word itself comes from an ancient symbol of political authority, the fasces, a bundle of rods bound tightly around an axe whose blade protrudes. This is the fascist vision: a disciplined, unified, and aggressive body politic. Unsurprisingly, fascism turned both Italy and Germany into discriminatory and ultimately disastrous dictatorships.
What does fascism look like in today’s world?
Today’s context is very different from the 1930s and there are no genuinely fascist regimes in today’s world. However, over the past decade there has been a noticeable erosion of the taboos against fascism that developed after the end of World War 2.
This is most noticeable in the nations that best exemplified fascism originally, Italy and Germany. But fascist tendencies can be seen emerging elsewhere, too, even where we might least expect them.
Is fascism on the rise in the US under Trump, and, if so, how?
Donald Trump’s style — based on charisma, blind devotion and disruption of both domestic and international status quo — certainly echoes that of Europe’s interwar fascist leaders. The president’s central message, Make American Great Again, is strongly reminiscent of fascist programmes to purge the state and radically reinvigorate the nation.
Paramilitary groups have retreated to the shadows for now, but henchmen are prominent, and it is not far-fetched to see the youngsters working for Doge (Department of Government Efficiency) as today’s equivalent of Mussolini’s blackshirts. Open contempt for democratic processes and the media are further characteristics that take us back
to interwar Europe.
The US may still have a long way to go before it could be called a fascist or simply an authoritarian state, but the accusations of fascism levelled at the presidency have a clear historical basis.
What lessons should we learn from famous historical examples of fascism — Italy under Mussolini and Germany under Hitler?
The most obvious is that fascism’s central message of constant national renewal (usually at the expense of other nations), inevitably leads to disastrous conflict.
Another is that simple answers to complex social and geopolitical challenges, while immensely seductive, are never effective in the longer term. If information is monopolised and"the truth" is controlled by a narrow range of vested interests, the consequences are likely to be brutal.
Finally, in 1920s Italy and 1930s Germany, democratic opposition had only a small window of opportunity to unify and resist, but it was missed. Even in New Zealand, politicians who appease Trump for fear of causing the slightest offence are helping to close it once again.
Should people be concerned about a fascist leadership style and why?
If people truly believe claims that minorities and migrants have ruined everything for a given nation’s "deserving" members, they are unlikely to become concerned before it is too late.
But if they do not, then yes. For me the real question is why the appeal of such ideas and leaders who want to disrupt the status quo has become so broad in the democratic West.
How did the past few decades give rise to disillusionment as bitter as that of war-torn 1919 Italy or Great-Depression Germany?
All who are opposed to contemporary fascist trends need to reckon deeply with that question if our windows of opportunity are to be kept open.
— Newsroom
■Prof Mark Seymour is head of the history programme at the University of Otago.
